Ok about a month ago I started a blackberry wine. I notice it made the room smell like sulphur but it went away. The wine was in a secondary today, I ran a gravity it as .990. So I racked a third time. I notice the sulfur smell, but the wine does not taste bad. It's pretty good for a young wine. I have been told I might need to degass. This is a new one on me because I thought you were suppose to keep Oxygen out of wine. I used montrachet yeast(dry). I only added camden tablets one per gallon in the primary. When I went to secondary I added no camden and today I added no camden. What should I do about the smell, you think it will go away?

Sometimes degassing is necessary especially for kit wines, but not usually. The only time you need to degas is when the wine is actually gassy, though. I've NEVER had to degas a country wine. Montrachet yeast is known to be a stinky one, and it will dissapate with time. Rack when you have lees of about 1/4 inch or so, about every 30-45 days. I add campden every other racking to protect the wine from oxidation and foreign yeasts and bacteria.

In 6 months, it will smell great and in a year or two it'll really be good! I would not bottle before the 8 month mark.

__________________Broken Leg BreweryGiving beer a leg to stand on since 2006

I just racked a batch of blackberry wine I started in August; it is coming along nicely! The past month or so has gotten rid of the yeast taste and degassed it almost all the way.

Fermentation was done long ago, so this was just a 'bulk aging' rack. I am concerned that I may be getting too much headspace on top of my wine after racking (wine comes just barely up the shoulder of the carboy) and that oxidation may become an issue...should I try to add CO2 to the carboy or just rely on the camden tab every other rack?

I jury rigged a CO2 layer by reacting vinegar and baking soda in a pitcher and trying to pour the resulting CO2 into the carboy to displace some of the oxygen; the liquid in the bottom of the pitcher didn't leave the pitcher! (CO2 is heavier than O2, so the displacement works on paper, though you feel silly pouring an invisible gas into something). Is there a more practical way to do this?